Why is Last.fm still better than Spotify for finding new music?

While everyone is hyped about Spotify 's Discover Weekly , the decade-old platform Last.fm is superior when it comes to finding new music.

Why is Last.fm better at finding new music than Spotify?

However, diehard Spotify subscribers are probably wondering why it's worth using a completely different platform to find new music when Spotify can do the job just fine.

Cross-platform Scrobble keeps your journals in sync

One of Last.fm's biggest advantages over Spotify is its platform-agnostic approach to tracking music. While Spotify Discover Weekly and Release Radar only show you what you've been listening to on Spotify, Last.fm tracks everything. Whether you're streaming on their platform, YouTube Music , or even Spotify, everything gets scrobbled to your Last.fm profile.

This comprehensive tracking creates a complete picture of your musical journey. Last.fm integrates with popular music services like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube , and dozens of others. The scrobbling process not only records what you listen to, but also when you listen, creating a detailed timeline of your musical development.

Setting up cross-platform scrobbling takes just a few minutes. You can connect your Spotify account directly through the Last.fm website, install the Scrobbler web browser extension for platforms like YouTube and SoundCloud, or use third-party apps like Pano Scrobbler on your phone. This flexibility means you never miss a recording of your listening habits, no matter where you choose to stream music.

Musical Neighbors & Taste Matching lets you find music naturally

Last.fm's Neighbors feature embodies everything you love about authentic music discovery. Instead of algorithmic recommendations, you can browse profiles of people with similar musical tastes and see what they're currently obsessed with. This creates a more natural approach to finding new music, where recommendations come with the implicit validation of someone who "gets" your musical tastes.

Last.fm's music matching feature goes beyond genre. The platform analyzes your listening patterns, favorite artists, and even the times when you're most active. This creates a surprisingly accurate taste profile, connecting you with users who not only share many of the same artists, but also share similar ways of engaging with music.

Community insights add context that purely algorithmic recommendations can't match. When you see a "neighbor" playing a particular album, you know there's something special about that record.

To see your musical 'neighbors' from your profile, you can click on Neighbors and instantly find dozens of other users with similar musical tastes. Most of these connections lead to discovering artists you've never heard of but that perfectly match your current tastes.

Weekly personal music analysis

Last.fm's weekly reports put Spotify Wrapped to shame in terms of depth and accessibility. While you have to make the most of Spotify Wrapped every year, Last.fm provides detailed weekly reports that help you understand your changing music tastes throughout the year. These reports are updated every Friday, providing regular insights into how your listening habits have changed over time.

Weekly analysis visualizes and compares all the music you've listened to over the past 7 days. You can see which artists dominated your week, explore patterns in your listening behavior, and track how your music tastes change over the seasons. This ongoing analysis helps you understand your relationship with music in ways that yearly summaries can't capture.

Weekly reports also include comparison data, so you can see how your current listening compares to previous weeks. This helps you see when you're discovering more new music versus just listening to familiar favorites. Recent updates have improved these features even more with better visualization tools.

Advanced filtering features let you rediscover forgotten music

Last.fm's library search feature represents a major upgrade in how you can interact with your music data. While Spotify searches are limited to its catalog, Last.fm's library search lets you dig deep into your personal listening history. You can search for specific words in song titles, find all your collected songs that contain 'vaporwave-adjacent' in the tag, or locate obscure remakes you know you've heard before.

Filtering goes beyond basic searching. You can browse your listening history by specific time periods, from all-time favorites to songs you discovered last week. This time-based filter helps you rediscover songs you might have forgotten about or track how your personal music tastes have evolved over time.

Updates to Last.fm have made these features even more powerful. For example, it can sort your library based on recency, making it easier to see the items you collected or edited most recently.

Finally, Last.fm's tagging system creates another layer of discovery that most platforms miss. Users can tag songs, albums, and artists with descriptive words that go beyond traditional genre classifications. This community-driven tagging creates connections between songs that might not be obvious through algorithmic analysis, leading to more creative and unexpected discoveries.

Marvin Fry

Update 08 July 2025